Oliver Stone speaks of “The Putin Interviews

https://leaksource.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/stone-meets-putin-the-interview-2-years-in-the-making/Variety‘s
critic Sonia Saraiya credited the documentary for its intimacy, but
also wrote, “More often than not, Stone and Putin agree — on
Edward Snowden, on American overreach, on Hillary Clinton. At times,
Stone is skeptical of Putin, but for a leader strongly criticized for
his civil rights abuses, it hardly seems that Stone is skeptical
enough. On the other hand, there is some value in a profile that the
subject finds flattering — it reveals who he wants to be.”

“You
can’t do an Oliver Stone project and not be criticized,” Malhotra
said. “He’s not trying to play a ‘gotcha’ game. He approached
it with an idea: ‘If [Putin] is the great enemy of the United
States, then I think we should go out and find who he is.'”

He
adds, “There will definitely be a critique and scrutiny, but you
have to admire the comprehensive nature of it.”

Malhotra
makes some comparison of Stone’s Putin interviews to the
Frost-Nixon conversations in 1977, in which David Frost sat down with
Richard Nixon for a series of a dozen conversations over the course
of four weeks. It marked the first time that Nixon had granted an
extended interview since resigning the presidency three years
earlier.

The
difference, though, is that Putin has been doing other interviews.
Megyn Kelly landed him for the recent debut of her new NBC
newsmagazine. Malhotra said that they didn’t consider it “that
big of a deal because we recognized how much time she would have with
him.”

Malhotra
said that what sets “The Putin Interviews” apart is the access
that Stone got with Putin. He came away with more than 30 hours of
footage was whittled down into the four-hour project, which will air
over four nights this week. Putin talks not just about the U.S.
election, but NATO, playing hockey, “Dr. Strangelove,” and Middle
East strategy, among other topics.